Taboo game
Description This game is a spin on the childhood board game Taboo. It's used for helping your students practice their speaking and listening skills using vocabulary in their textbooks. This game can be played by splitting the class into two groups, or more, but for the sake of organization, each group should go one at a time. One student in each group will be the leader, and pick out a slip of paper that has the vocabulary word. Using as many hints as they can in English, without actually saying the word, describe to their teammates on the word they cannot say. The group leader cannot use Japanese, gestures, or draw the answer either. The group members must guess the word correctly within 60 seconds in order to receive a point. The group leader can draw a new slip of paper if his/her team guesses the word correctly within the 60 second time limit, or the leader deems that the word is too difficult to give hints to their team in English; however, each team is allowed one "skip" on a vocabulary word per round. The groups not participating in the round, must judge the active group to make sure they are not violating the rules. The team with the most points wins. Materials * stopwatch * slips of paper with vocabulary words. You should have a minimum of 30 vocabulary words ranging in difficulty from easy to hard; however, the more slips you have, the better. * A container that students can blindly draw a slip from. Procedure # Separate the class into groups (half and half is best, but groups of 4+ people also works too) (1 min) # Explain the rules. (2-4 minutes) # Have the first group pick their leader and come to the front of the class. (30 seconds) # Have the group leader pick out a slip of paper. Give them time to decide whether they want to use that word or redraw a new one. (15 seconds) # Start the round. (60 seconds) Variations * It's up to you to decide whether you want to change how long each round should be. Sometimes I felt like 60 seconds was too short for some classes, and sometimes 90 seconds was way too long. * For low level English learners, I found it helpful to make a Word document with a 3 column table for each vocabulary word you want to use for this game. The first column should have the word in English. The second should have the Katakana translation of the word, so that the group leader knows what correct answer sounds like, in case they cannot read it in English. The last column should be a small picture or an example sentence if a picture would not be applicable in describing the word. * For an easier time: Stop the clock if you feel like too much time is being lost when students know the answer but are stuttering/freeze when trying to answer correctly. * For a challenge: I play this game with my students as a warm up review of their vocabulary but we play in pairs. All students stand up in pairs with one student facing the front of the room and the other student turned around to face them (looking away from the board). Then I write one of their vocabulary words on the board and students facing the front of the room have to define it in English until their partner guesses. When they guess correctly they can sit down. After everyone finishes, have students stand back up and switch roles. --Megan D. Sources